the groundhog day project

Popeye, especially Robin William's take in Robert Altman's film, is a strange character. Loving but prone to violence. Kind but prone to insult. He speaks without thinking and, while he's fairly accepting of the people around him (seriously, Popeye and Sweethaven here are like Phil Connors and Punxsutawney reversed), he still has his standards and, when it comes to gambling at least, he's quite expressive about them. Doesn't matter how it might actually help the baby he himself has taking to caring for (and by mere cinematic whimsy, with Swee'pea there, they cannot lose); whatever moral code Popeye's got--his "moralikies"--he sticks to it. Meanwhile, in the real world, you've got Republicans supporting a child molester because he would support their politics, Democrats calling out sexual abusers and harassers all over the place but then when it's one of theirs, do they scream as loudly? And, if they do, what happens when their senator resi...

Subtitle: thoughts on the film without the politics... if that's possible. For example, the costumes: Judy's. Outfit is far too conservative, far too reserved. While Violet's is looser, with a looser, Chinese pattern. to it. Her outfits are loose, practical, but her colors are subdued. (I rather enjoy Grace and Frankie and that's totally, if deliberately not explicitly a reunion of these two characters... Except I cannot imagine that Frankie ever worked an office job.) Doralee's costumes are somewhere in between, and far more showy. The office is stale, too practical, visually something out of the 50s with rare elements from the 60s--like Mr. Hart's office, a lot of Browns, a wood desk, wood paneling, but then some chairs that feel more modern (for 1980). One of the big changes, visually, later with the three women making the decisions, is that the office takes on a lot more color--very 70s. And, there's the scarf. Violet has to buy it for Mr. Hart...